Boating Knowledge Base
Have a sailing question? Access NauticEd’s sailing and boating knowledge base, and gain in-depth answers to your sailing questions. If you’re interested in powerboating, visit our new powerboating blog.
Typical Sailboat Energy Usage
Here we show the devices and how much energy you would typically use on a sailing boat on a sailing vacation each day.
True Wind vs. Apparent Wind
Learn the basic difference between True Wind and Apparent Wind...
Getting Familiar with the Charter Boat
Prior to releasing the boat to you, the charter company will give you a reasonably extensive walk through the boat.
Anchoring
Anchoring is not simply throwing a “hook” and letting out a line. However, after watching some sailors, this seems to be their theory. Successful anchoring requires a plan considering all the factors.
Understanding the Safety Position in Sailing
Learn how the Safety Position — a controlled, depowered close reach — helps sailors pause safely without losing steerage. Ideal for MOB drills, instruction, and more.
Electrical Measurements
To be prepared and understand electrical power usage on a modern vessel, it is important to learn a few basic terms and concepts.
Wind
Winds can be gentle, hardly felt, like zephyrs flitting about in a local area, or they can be vast movements of air moving swiftly across oceans and continents at low and high altitudes.
Crew Briefing Video
It is important to know how much experience your crew has before you embark on any sailing adventure. For our boat, we created a video walkaround introduction to the boat covering safety items and also just general items on how we want our boat looked after.
Showering on a Charter Boat
Charter boat guests use the showers not only for basic hygiene, but must also rinse off seawater after swimming to avoid nasty skin rashes (sailor’s sores).
Experience ≠ Competency
Years on the water don't automatically make someone a competent sailor. Discover why objective assessments, continuous learning, and practical skills are the real indicators of safe seamanship.
Sail Trim
While setting the sails to general rules of thumb will get you really close to a good sail set,
Sailboat Inverters
Sailboat Inverters are devices used to convert 12-volt DC battery electricity to AC 110-volt or 220-volt electricity. Special electronics in
Keeping the Telltales Flying Steady
As a sailor we are doing one of two things when it comes to sail trim, either holding a course or trimming to our sails...
Topping Up your Energy on a Sailboat
There are several methods to top-off your energy on a sailboat.
Seacocks – Getting Familiar with a Charter Boat
Seacocks are designed to let water flow out of the hull safely. They are not one-way valves so any loose clamps around the seacock itself create leaks around the hoses and can allow water to enter into the boat. This is usually bad – right?
Sailboat Battery Usage
Batteries are a vessel’s major source of power for many essential functions both when in the slip and while sailing.
Action to Avoid Collision
When you reach the section on who is responsible to give way to whom - in certain circumstances...
Know Your Chart!
Always familiarize yourself with any chart before using it for navigation and plotting of positions; there are significant differences between charts that could lead to mistakes.
Why Anchor?
There are many reasons for anchoring your boat...
Heave To
Heave To in sailing is a way to stop the boat with full sails still up. You might do
Getting the General Feel of Maneuvering a Catamaran
Some have compared maneuvering a catamaran with driving a bulldozer. Well . . . perhaps!
Returning a sailboat to the Slip
Time flies when you are sailing. But sadly, the moment comes when you must return and put your vessel back in its slip.
Catamaran Maneuvering Mastery
As now learned, Cats can turn inside their own length, they can vector sideways, and using the bulldozer effect you can instantly rotate the Cat to point in any direction, you can do almost anything.
When Turbulent Flow Happens in Sailing
An airplane stalls and falls out of the sky when the wings stop producing as much lift, similar to when turbulent air flow happens in sailing...
